22 November 2012

Sepia Saturday 153: Sisters, Sisters ...

White Christmas Anniversary Edition, Blu Ray DVD

"I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" with every blog post that I write.... Not dreaming of actually having a white Christmas but dreaming of the movie, White Christmas. Every year at Thanksgiving, my sister, Mickey, and I would begin reading the TV guide for a listing of our favorite Christmas movies. Topping the list was 'White Christmas.' We watched 'White Christmas' on a black-and-white, 20-inch TV every year, singing along and shedding a few tears at the end each time.

White Christmaswas inspired by the song by the same name. The song debuted in another of our favorite movies, Holiday Inn. With a score written by Irving Berlin, the singing and dancing is what makes White Christmas a classic. As soon as White Christmas became available on VHS, it was on my list and given as a gift to my sister. A few years later, White Christmas in DVD form was under my tree. I just now noticed that the Anniversary Edition is available as a Blu Ray DVD - Santa? Mickey?

Being sisters and musically inclined, my sister and I performed 'Sisters, Sisters' from White Christmas for anyone, anytime. Sadly for our audiences, our talent was not in vocal music. You can see Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen perform "Sisters, Sisters" on YouTube as well as a rendition of the same performance by Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye.

None of these compare to the spectacle my sister and I made singing about our sisterly love around the camp fire. No doubt our audience survived only because of the liquid refreshment they imbibed. My future brother-in-law could not believe our performance. Shaking his head, he remarked about our bravery (or was it stupidity?). I suppose we should feel lucky that there were no cameras present to permanently record our insanity.

With temperatures in the high 60s today, there is little chance of snow or even a Thanksgiving fire in the fireplace. Dreaming now of "Snow, Snow, Snow," another favorite song from White Christmas....

Mickey Warwick Sledding, photograph by Chet Warwick

Highlighted type links to further information or a YouTube video of a performance. Sepia Saturday had me reminiscing about good times with my sister. For more posts inspired by the photograph below, see Sepia Saturday 153. Which song was your favorite?

Just over a month to go and it's Christmas time again. Here Christmas is becoming increasingly important but first we have our own Santa viz. Sinterklaas celebrating his birthday on Sinterklaas Eve (December 5). Like Mickey we hope to enjoy some snow this year. Pity there were no cameras present at the camp fire...

The holiday season always begins the day after Christmas for us. We will be putting out the decorations today and taking them down while watching football bowl games on January 1. I love the holiday season. Can't wait for it to start.

I bet the cards are lovely. More and more, my Christmas greetings come by email and even Facebook posts! One of my cousins makes beautiful cards and I look forward to seeing what she will do each year.

I did not realize that the Christmas movies were shown so soon after Thanksgiving even then, I thiough this rushing the season's was a recent marketing phenomena. We had a balmy Thanksgiving too, 65 degrees but yesterday the temps dropped to 31, brr. Winter will be here soon enough. White Christmas is an all time favorite for me too. I have it on an old VHS which plays on nothing in our home, guess I have to invest in a DVD. As for snow, I can wait, it will be here soon enough....enjoyed the nostalgia

I hope you enjoy the film; it is great fun with a little nostalgic look at past glories in the military thrown in. It seems we have another generation facing civilian life after long tours of military duty.

Lanzarote sounds like the place to be in the winter or anytime. I did a Google image search and who should I see posting an image, our own Alan Burnett!

White Christmas is one of my favorites too. To kick off the holiday season, I like to watch White Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life. I hope to watch both of them some time this week. Cute picture of your little sister!

I've just returned from our holiday feast, and on Thanksgiving Day all we found to watch was a 24 hour marathon of the Godfather trilogy. Not really a Christmas classic. In my memory it was the Wizard of Oz that was the holiday perennial. It was many years until we acquired a color TV that I discovered that it was in sepia AND color! There were two sisters in that too, but maybe not the nice kind.

We're big fans of both "White Christmas" and "Holiday Inn" and have both on DVD. Of course, we enjoy the music and dancing, but 2 things ALWAYS crack us up: Bing Crosby whistling behind the Christmas tree ("HI") and the discussion of liverwurst and buttermilk at the "Vermont smorgasbord" ("WC").